1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication control technique of making the operation window of a device open on a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are conventionally products which connect a device to a network and make the contents or control of the device open to terminals on the network.
For example, a NAS (Network Attached Storage) product connects a hard disk to a network and makes its contents open. Some NAS products can, for example, connect an external hard disk via a USB (Universal Serial Bus) interface and open the contents.
As for a camera, a network camera product having a network connection function and an HTTP server function enables a terminal connected to a network to view a sensed live image using a browser.
Additionally, for a digital camera having a network connection function, a method of updating sensed images to a server has been proposed (e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-197429).
There is also proposed a method of acquiring the information of a device connected to a non-IP network and dynamically creating a homepage for controlling the device (e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-285371).
According to the above-described prior arts, however, for a device which has a plurality of modes and changes the operable function depending on a set mode, a user interface open on a network does not reflect the mode of the device.
Particularly when the mode setting of the device which is being connected to the network has changed, it is impossible to appropriately change the user interface open on the network in accordance with the mode.
The relationship between mode change and a user interface will be explained here, assuming that a digital camera open on a network has a plurality of modes. Assume that the digital camera has a plurality of modes to be described below. In a remote control mode, the camera captures images under the control of the host apparatus. In a direct transfer mode, images are sent to the host apparatus by the operation of the camera. In a remote viewfinder mode (remote shooting mode), shutter shooting is performed from the host apparatus. When this digital camera is made open on the network, it is not possible to open a user interface capable of an appropriate operation corresponding to each mode.
Additionally, in making images accumulated in the digital camera open on the network, it is not easy to select the images to be made open.